Another Man’s Treasure

The Detroit Autorama is a big deal. Since 1964, it’s where well-funded builders and customers have debuted new project cars to compete for the Don Ridler memorial award (Sponsored by GM Performance Division). The show is massive and serious. There’s another facet to this celebration of custom iron, though, and it’s just as serious but without the pomp and circumstance. Deep in the bowels of Cobo Hall—beneath the six- and seven-figure show cars with displays that cost nearly that much—you’ll find the Autorama Extreme hall, or “The Basement” for short. It’s a place for traditional hot rods and a haven for those who care deeply about style and the right haircut. In fact, you can get a period-correct haircut from the staff of the Berkeley Chop Shop while drooling over vintage tin and listening to live music. The cars range from retro-pure roadsters to full-on rats.

2/28BEST ENGINE

Autorama Extreme is a different kind of cool, and the handcrafted awards given to the best entries are coveted just as much as the shiny ones handed out upstairs. The trophies are built by the Detroit chapter of the Poor Boys CarClub (TheOriginalPoorBoys.com). Tim King finds most of the parts, Roger Atwood handles the fabrication, and Marc Nischan adds the finishing touches: custom stripes and lettering. This year, Matt Homer and Lefty, a visiting Poor Boys member from Sacramento who came out for Autorama, lent steady helping hands to the striping, too. The Poor Boys also have their own shindig in June called Sins of Steel (SinsOfSteel.com) with equally cool awards. Here are a few of our faves from Detroit.